 The Persian Gulf War, 550,000 American troops have amassed in Saudi Arabia. They are ready to face dictator Saddam Hussein in his notorious army, now occupying Kuwait. On August 2, 1990, some 80,000 Iraqi troops stormed their southern border, officially commencing the invasion of Kuwait. Although fighting officially began on August 2, the conflict began years earlier. After the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Iraq found itself burdened by more than $14 billion in debt. It had taken out to finance the eight-year conflict. This added to the $20 billion Iraq was already carrying, totaling more than 80% of the country's GDP. And this was not a time to be carrying debt. In the midst of a particularly nasty recession, the Federal Reserve, under Chairman Paul Volcker, had raised interest rates to record highs. At the U.S.'s position at the center of global finance, this sent shockwaves and increasing rates across the world, particularly in a country like Iraq, with a high risk of default. Today, most First World countries' national debts have interest rates in the low single digits. But Iraq's topped 13%, and while their national debt was piling up, oil markets were collapsing. From their peak in 1980, oil prices had fallen by more than two-thirds amid falling demand and increased production. And this especially hurt Iraq, who, at the start of the 1980s, some more than half their total GDP, come from oil reserves. This all put great pressure on the Iraqi government to find additional revenue sources, so when Kuwait supposedly started stealing their oil, they weren't in a forgiving mood. Most people think of oil wells as going straight down, but they don't have to. Underground you can drill at an angle, or even perpendicular to the ground. In the lead-up to the invasion, Iraq alleged that Kuwait had been doing this to steal oil under Iraqi soil. This coupled with Kuwait's high oil production, which had depressed regional prices for years, was all the justification they needed for war. It's important to note that while Iraq claimed the invasion was in retaliation for Kuwait's actions, the rest of the world recognized this as a thinly veiled excuse to seize valuable oil fields deep within the country. The invasion began on Thursday, and by Saturday, most of Kuwait's armed forces had been overrun, or were forced to retreat to neighboring countries. By annexing Kuwait, Iraq now controlled a fifth of the world's oil reserves, and for the first time, a substantial coastline on the Persian Gulf. That same day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously denounced the invasion and demanded Iraq's immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. And following extensive consultations with our coalition partners, Saddam Hussein was given one last chance to withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait. Regrettably, the noon deadline passed without the agreement of the government of Iraq. After failing to withdraw by January 15, in building up an occupying force of some 300,000 Iraqi troops, the U.S., acting under a U.N. resolution authorizing force, led a coalition of 39 nations against Iraq. The following 42-day war would become the most one-sided conflict in military history. The Allied coalition suffered about 250 deaths and 500 wounded, while Iraqi casualties numbered at least 25,000 and left more than 75,000 wounded. But how did the Allied coalition win such a staggering victory? A large part was thanks to the U.S.'s technological supremacy. The counter-invasion would see the most advanced technological weapons ever deployed in combat. The first Gulf War was the U.S.'s first major military intervention since the Vietnam War, more than a decade prior, and technology advanced considerably in that time. The conflict saw the rollout of the F-117 Nighthawk. This was the plane that would come to popularize the term stealth in reference to an aircraft's reduced radar signature. Before the days of computer modeling, the F-117's frame was designed by hand to reflect enemy radar up into the atmosphere and away from the ground-based source. The plane's aluminum exterior was coated with a radar-absorbent material that further reduced its radar signature. This stealth technology was so advanced that the plane's 13-meter wingspan was reduced on radar to a cross-sectional area between 10 and 100 centimeters squared, a size smaller than most of the birds that flew over Iraqi airspace, making the planes nearly impossible to identify. Although the 36 F-117s made up less than 3% of the more than 1,900 Allied planes in the early days of the counter-invasion before Iraqi radar stations were taken out, they flew more than a third of the bombing runs. Across the 1,000 hours of the conflict, these 36 planes saw an impressive 7,000 hours of combined flight time. The stealth fighter attacked the most heavily fortified targets, and it was the only coalition jet allowed to strike targets inside Baghdad, the capital city protected by more than 3,000 anti-aircraft guns and 60 surface-air missile battery defenses. Despite these defenses, the F-117 was never shot down over Iraqi skies, and over its whole 25 years of service, only three would ever be downed by enemy defenses. More than just stealth technology equipped on these planes were the most advanced bombs ever developed. Laser-guided bombs, first introduced during the Vietnam War, allowed coalition forces to pick apart hostile tanks from miles away. The planes releasing the bombs, or target-control aircraft, or even forces on the ground would illuminate the target with an infrared laser. Sensors in the bombs' nose would then lock onto the reflections from the laser, and mini-computers fitted within the casing would then control adjustable fins on the bomb to guide them to their target. These laser-guided munitions were 100 to 200 times as effective as conventional bombs. Flying at 50,000 feet, a bomb dropped half a second late could miss its target by hundreds of feet, but in the first Gulf War, laser-guided munitions had an average accuracy of 10 feet or less. This was especially crucial in major Iraqi cities, where military fortifications were often surrounded by civilian homes. And after the launch of Navstar-1, the first GPS satellite only two years prior, coalition forces were the first ever to use GPS to precisely track both friendly and enemy troop movements. This was especially important in a theater like the first Gulf War. The vast majority of the coalition's forces were not from the Middle East, mostly Americans, and so they didn't know the regional geography. And whereas European and East Asian theaters of war provided geographical landmarks to use as guides, most of Kuwait and Iraq were empty deserts with no mountains or rivers and very little infrastructure to aid in navigation. GPS technology allowed ground troops to coordinate real-time movements across hundreds of miles of open desert, proving a decisive advantage. Another technological advance that's often overlooked are night vision goggles. During Operation Desert Storm, soldiers used $25,000 holographic night vision goggles that amplified light too dim for the naked eye. Normally, you can't see at night because there isn't enough light for your eyes. But night vision goggles can detect very small amounts of light and even wavelengths that we can't normally detect, like infrared. The goggles then boost these signals between two and 7,000 times, allowing you to see enemy movements. These glasses gave the coalition a major edge over Iraqi forces and night battles, especially because the Iraqi troops were unaware of this technology and often favored night battles to hide from coalition aircraft, only to be spotted by the ground-based forces using these goggles. The combination of these technologies gave coalition forces the upper hand, leading to the largest one-sided conflict in military history and the liberation of occupied Kuwait. Hey guys, as you could probably tell, this was a different style of video than what we normally do in both what we talked about. It was sort of half history in the beginning, half science behind the history at the end, and also just the editing style we chose to do it in. So if you liked either of these two changes, be sure to let us know and then we can keep making some of our videos in this newer style. And also if you like the half history, half science and you have some ideas for what you want to see, be sure to let us know down in the comment section below. As always, have a great day and remember, there's always more to learn.